Beats Music
Beats Music was a music streaming service with heart—acquired by Apple.
Beats Music was initiated by Beats Electronics, of Beats by Dre fame. It went head to head with market leader Spotify, offering a new kind of music experience. That experience was focused on personalized music recommendations and real-life human curation.
I joined the team in early 2013. Leaders like CEO Ian Rogers and Chief Creative Officer Trent Reznor attracted me to the project. A great love and passion for music, and a reverence for the important role it plays in our lives solidified my interest.
As the company’s first design hire, I worked closely with director Ryan Goodman to build a world class design team. With the help of RGA, we shaped a bold, dramatic, geometric interface and launched a stunning product on 5 platforms.
With mobile in a good place, I jumped on and led design efforts for our web product. Entirely unrealized, I worked closely with engineering to push an MVP followed by frequent feature updates. The web player was visually aggressive, matching mobile in its style and drama.
Prototyping was a necessary part of the design process. It helped my team feel and understand the design, and acted as a guide for our engineers. Below are two studies I developed with our motion designer Antonio Alucema.
The Beats Music team set out to bring heart and soul into music streaming. It worked, and in the summer of 2015 Beats Music was acquired by Apple.